Our 37 degree day in The Golden Mile

Tuesday, January 9th

We had a good, although very hot, day exploring the goldfields area around Kalgoorlie. We began by looking through the colourful towns of Kalgoorlie and Boulder….lots of ornate heritage buildings, dating back to about 1898 when the gold rush started booming and the area became wealthy. Lots of pubs! The towns are quite attractive, with very wide streets. The Town Hall in Boulder is particularly impressive, and standing inside it I could just imagine all the events and social functions, theatre and dinners which must have been held there over the years.

We then drove up to the lookout over Australia’s largest gold mine, known as the Superpit (it’s basically a huge pit, which represents the coming together of lots of old separate mining leases). It’s size is staggering, as is the size and cost of the trucks and machinery used in the mine! Pretty amazing. The mine is very, very wide and very, very deep- huge trucks look like matchbox cars from the lookout, and the trucks make ordinary 4wd vehicles look like little ants!
A few facts which we found pretty impressive:
The mine is 3.5 kms long, and 1.5kms wide and 500 metres deep!
The haul trucks are state of the art, worth $3.5 million and the take out 225 tonnes each trip! Each massive tyre costs $26,000- totalling $156,000 in tyres for each truck. There are four Face Shovel machines at the mine, worth $10 million each, with each bucket holding 60 tonnes.
They expect to keep mining there until 2017 at this stage.

We then set off on a road trip. We went on a circuit, first going to Coolgardie, then mainly on dirt roads through some old goldrush towns, now ghost towns, with just a few crumbling remains left in the middle of the bush of what were once thriving towns.
We stopped at one place called Ora Banda where the old pub has been restored, and had a cold drink- we needed it, it was 37 degrees today with a strong, hot wind blowing all day. Bloody hot. We sat outside the pub on a dirt road in the middle of the outback, north of Kalgoorlie, and marvelled at just where we were.
We also went to a freshwater lake, called Rowles Lagoon where we saw some black swans (we saw white swans at Northam, a small town on the road to Kalgoorlie, yesterday) ducks and other water birds. There wasn’t too much water left in the lake- amazingly, it’s known as a local waterski location! It’s in the middle of the bush.
On the drive we also passed many other working mines- we didn’t realise there were just so many different mines out here.

It was a really interesting day and we are glad that we ended up seeing this part of Australia (even though it means we missed Bremmer Bay which is supposed to be lovely- next time!). It’s hard to imagine what life would have been like out here more than 100 years ago, when people came in search of gold. Some made their fortune, but others simply struggled and suffered hardship and sickness, living in such harsh conditions. Off course those who first found gold in the area which has now become the Superpit- the so-called Golden Mile - would have been laughing.

It’s now 30 degrees at 9pm. Tomorrow we set off for Esperance- reports are that it is still good for tourists to visit, after the storm. We are looking forward to being back near the ocean and in cooler temperatures. But we certainly will remember this trip to Kalgoorlie!

Love, Emma & Adam xx